"A war between two of the major conglomerates will always have casualties, and unfortunately for us, this time we are the casualties. We aren't yet at a state where it is impossible to use Google services on Microsoft platforms, but we are moving towards a stricter ecosystem world where we might see Googlers/Gmail users on one side and Bingers/Outlook users on the other. We can only hope for the sake of technologies future and for the sake of innovation that the two companies can learn to work together in an ever expanding world of data." We can hope so, but we're talking large companies, and large companies do not care about users. Never have, never will.

I think Google is being particularly aggressive, even smart, in preempting Microsoft with this platform protectionism.

There are likely more people heavily wedded to Gmail than Outlook, so it does screw customers, but they don't lash out at Google as much as they just don't opt for Windows Phone.

To be clear though, I don't think Google can afford to ignore the Windows Store on Windows 8.x because of the potential size of the addressable market. With Windows 8 sales being in the tens of millions and growing at a steady pace, you've already seen Google make moves to support Windows 8.

They are hoping Android becomes their next stage for their services and displaces Windows eyeball for eyeball but this obviously isn't happening fast enough or necessarily a guarantee to happen at all.

At the same time, Microsoft is fighting back aggressively to claw back some share from the others. The entire company has been put into a yearly release cadence which for a sprawling company like Microsoft is pretty significant. Couple this with the looming re-org and you quickly see a company that is serious about taking on its competitors.

Windows Phone may or may not take off, but Windows 8 is an eventuality that Google has to come to terms with. It will complicate things quite a bit for them down the road I think, where they ignore Windows Phone but can't afford to ignore Windows as a whole.